Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

these belong in the "Everybody Hates Keith" thread ...

lotek wrote:they talk of Sadworms/

http://awesomescreenshot.com/053lh3y2c" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

SandRider wrote:these belong in the "Everybody Hates Keith" thread ...

Damn I effin' knew there was a place for that.

Can one of our ultra-awesome admins move it for me please ?

Shukran !

EDIT TO ADD
SR, I guess that means no cookie?

Merged

http://io9.com/5940743/kevin-j-anderson ... neil-peart" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

TyCobbsGlove wrote:Kevin J Anderson is a fucking hack. Are you done raping Frank Herbert's body, Kevin? Has
your tiny, withered cock pumped the last little glob of poisonous spooge into the Dune
universe? Go get fucked by a Portuguese man o' war.

El_Fez wrote:How the hell does this guy keep getting jobs? His Star Wars books were some of the worst
fan fiction I've ever had the misfortune to read and apparently he destroyed the Dune
franchise just as badly.

el Suprehombre wrote:I'm glad he finally moved onto something else he can't write.

Keith's SW fan fiction is no worse than that of his peers, though I do think he may have written bad sentences like, "What in the Force are you doing here?" It does seem he is stuck in an eternal pre-adolescent state, based upon reading his fiction and recent reviews from fellow Jacurutians. I don't enough about Keith's history or psychology to understand why his writing process is the way it is.

On another topic, doesn't KJA seem a little bit like one of character from a Christopher Guest film? Imagine someone doing a SPINAL TAP-like mockumentary based upon Keith and Brian, and having it be about them trying to write more installments to a series resembling DUNE, with a different name like DUST or SAND. Such a mockumentary could serve as a vehicle for satirical jabs on the current establishments of mainstream pulp sci-fi. That's a script I could imagine the masters of Jacurutu could pull of with great skill and zeal.

lotek wrote:My favourites :

Re: Let's list the ways Kevin J Anderson Ruined Star Wars

- Wasn´t he the "everyone should get married to each other!" guy?
- Darksaber was a plot idea that was impossible to make boring, and which was somehow made boring.
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?527 ... -Star-Wars" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Actually, Dave Wolverton and Timothy Zahn were the ones who had the main characters marry. In Wolverton's THE COURTSHIP OF PRINCESS LEIA, Leia married Han, and in Zahn's VISION OF THE FUTURE, Luke proposed to Mara Jade. Barbara Hambly nearly had Luke find love with the spirit of an older Jedi woman from the Clone Wars era who ended up possessing the body of his younger female student in CHILDREN OF THE JEDI, but then things didn't work out in KJA's DARKSABER, and finally just collapsed in Hambly's conclusion, THE PLANET OF TWILIGHT. I don't think Luke married until he was middle-aged, and he had a lot of near misses with other women in the expanded universe novels. I haven't catched up with it since, but I did find out that Luke's ex-girlfriend from a Dark Horse comic killed Mara, and he went Bronson on her. Lando tried to date Mara in the KJA books, but she didn't fall for the Lando charm. I don't recall Lando finding a lover yet.

It's true that DARKSABER kind of withered in its potential. Originally, I thought it was kind of creative to have the Darksaber not work, and final get smashed by asteroids, but at the same time it was unsatisfying. I think that the Darksaber should have at least been functional, and the book could have used a bad-ass infiltration of the Darksaber. The novel was mainly Luke taking his newfound girlfriend to all the places where he saw visions of Obiwan as a romantic getaway. I recall Luke going to Obiwan's homestead hoping he could get his master's ghost to help his girlfriend get her Force powers back, and chanting "Help me Obiwan Kenobi, your my only hope." ... Yeah, KJA's decisions for DARKSABER were kind of lame in comparison to his THE JEDI ACADEMY TRILOGY (which still has a lot of decent ideas). If ever I did get to write SW novels (though it may be better I didn't), I think I would look at Keith's works as examples on what not to do when coming up with new compelling situations for the SW universe.

I still think the PRELUDE TO DUNE books deserve a rewrite. Some good ideas despite inconsistencies, but overall needs to be expanded up and super-polished. Of course, I'm still waiting for the best writers on Jacurutu to write their own prequels, because they've thought deeper and more comprehensibly about DUNE's backstory than KJA and Brian have in PRELUDE.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/today-in ... %2C102844/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


down in the comments:

3 Pandering Sluts

The good ones: Zahn Trilogy, Han Solo Trilogy, Bounty Hunter Wars, Cloak of Deception (an Episode I prequel by James Luceno), some of the grittier Clone Wars novels, and of course Han Solo Adventures.

Particularly awful: The Courtship of Princess Leia, Tatooine Ghost, Jedi Academy (and everything by Kevin J. Anderson *cough*), Black Fleet Crisis was SO FUCKING BORING, the Darth Bane books were super-disappointing, NJO and Legacy of the Force and good god anything by Karen Traviss.

This is hours and hours of my life I wish I had back.

http://srgower.blogspot.com/2011/03/my- ... vin-j.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

olivier, as a comment, wrote: Friend, I had the same debut as you regarding Kevin J Anderson writing.
However, I quickly understood how low level this writing was.Later on, I
became an insane fan of Frank Herbert's Dune, and after reading fanatically
what he wrote, I had to put an eye in the prequel that where made by his
son, Bryan Herbert, and Kevin J Anderson. It was the moment where my
dislike for Kevin J Anderson grew to radiant hate.

<later>

Dune is, in my opinion, an intellectual monument,...
Kevin J Anderson took that, and turned it into shit by lowering the level
of writing, by making all those complicated characters into stupid and
shallow elements that actually could be caught in a poor development, by
adding robots to the story, by adding out-of-context sex scenes, by having
serious continuity problems that made those new Dunes feel more like bad
fan fiction than real new elements to the universe.

My hatred is rational.

http://www.reddit.com/r/scifi/comments/ ... _any_good/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Adastras wrote: "Hey, let's make ANOTHER DEATH STAR. Except this time, it's owned by the Hutts.
And it's in the shape of a lightsaber! Cept it's called the Darksaber! AWESOME"

D Pope wrote:http://www.reddit.com/r/scifi/comments/ ... _any_good/

Adastras wrote: "Hey, let's make ANOTHER DEATH STAR. Except this time, it's owned by the Hutts.
And it's in the shape of a lightsaber! Cept it's called the Darksaber! AWESOME"

God that book was bad. Holy shit.

georgiedenbro wrote:

D Pope wrote:http://www.reddit.com/r/scifi/comments/ ... _any_good/

Adastras wrote: "Hey, let's make ANOTHER DEATH STAR. Except this time, it's owned by the Hutts.
And it's in the shape of a lightsaber! Cept it's called the Darksaber! AWESOME"

God that book was bad. Holy shit.

Haters gonna hate.
If you didn't like the book, you shouldn't have read it.
<preeq argument>

D Pope wrote:

georgiedenbro wrote:

D Pope wrote:http://www.reddit.com/r/scifi/comments/ ... _any_good/

Adastras wrote: "Hey, let's make ANOTHER DEATH STAR. Except this time, it's owned by the Hutts.
And it's in the shape of a lightsaber! Cept it's called the Darksaber! AWESOME"

God that book was bad. Holy shit.

Haters gonna hate.
If you didn't like the book, you shouldn't have read it.
<preeq argument>

Come to think of it, maybe Darksaber is a metaphor for impotence, or anti-climax. You got this big awesome laser weapon which has a badass name, and it turns out it can't fire at all, and gets smashed by asteroids. And, at the end of the book, Luke loses his girlfriend to the Dark Side, who was a student possessed by the spirit of a Clone Wars-era Jedi. It's the spirit who possesses the student he's in love with, not the student. Yeah, she loses her Force powers, and then left him to reclaim her powers again through the Dark Side, and she thought that would complicate their relationship.

I think they rented a hotel room together once, but nothing much happened.

Luke had a bad case of Darksaber in that book for sure.

georgiedenbro wrote:

D Pope wrote:http://www.reddit.com/r/scifi/comments/ ... _any_good/

Adastras wrote: "Hey, let's make ANOTHER DEATH STAR. Except this time, it's owned by the Hutts.
And it's in the shape of a lightsaber! Cept it's called the Darksaber! AWESOME"

God that book was bad. Holy shit.

Is that what that book was about? A giant (fully operational) death-star sized lightsaber that was manned by a bunch of giant slugs? That sounds pretty fucking stoopid. Way to go KJA.

Though it does make one wonder; if that lightsaber hit a planet Obi Wan Kenobi was on, would the planet disappear like Obi Wan did, or be cut in half like that guys arm in the bar on Tattoonie?

Omphalos wrote:
Is that what that book was about? A giant (fully operational) death-star sized lightsaber that was manned by a bunch of giant slugs? That sounds pretty fucking stoopid. Way to go KJA.

Well, not quite a lightsaber, and not quite the size of a Death Star. It's the Death Star's laser rebuilt, and it was called Darksaber just because it was lightsaber-shaped. Somehow, the Hutt villain got one of the Death Star's engineers to build it, because he wanted a Death Star of his own (I'm not quite sure what his motivation was, exactly). The engineer thought that building just the laser would be more practical, but he added the Darksaber name just because he knew his Hutt boss would love the sound of it. I recall the Hutt sounded extremely aroused by the name: KJA makes his villains very overeager and smarmy. (Come to think of it, the KJA's Hutt villain and KJA's Baron Harkonnen are very similar in their cartoonish overconfidence).

It's not too stupid. It's an interesting concept to have the Hutt mafia manage to acquire Imperial technology for their own ends. It's one of my first Star Wars novels I read, so I admit being a little bit partial to it, though I do remember its flaws well. (Particularly when Luke had to redo the "Hear me, Leia!" when stranded in space with his future ex-girlfriend). Thinking about how that book was a follow-up to Children of the Jedi got me thinking of how the Star Wars novelists (or official fan fiction writers) complement each others stories, and those writers reminded me of Kurt Vonnegut's essay on Science Fiction. Vonnegut said that sci-fi authors are tribal, and are more interested in banding together than writing good quality fiction. Vonnegut was referring to the early pulp sci-fi writers, but I think it has more relevance to the Star Wars novelists... And the Star Trek novelists, and the Magic: The Gathering novelists.

Omphalos wrote:Though it does make one wonder; if that lightsaber hit a planet Obi Wan Kenobi was on, would the planet disappear like Obi Wan did, or be cut in half like that guys arm in the bar on Tattoonie?

If Darksaber were a giant lightsaber which could swing in space, than it would cut the asteroid in half (unless it was filled with explosive gas, or was made of incendiary minerals). Since Darksaber is just the Death Star's laser, than it would just explode it. Kenobi is dead anyway, so the Darksaber is not his problem. His ghost pretty much told Luke in Heir to the Empire that he was through with being his spectral guide, and set off permanently to the Jedi afterlife. Luke did try to contact him again in Darksaber by going to his old home and repeating Leia's memorable line: "Help me Obi-wan, you're my only hope." It didn't work.

Before KJA ruined Dune, he went about writing sycophantic Star Wars books. I can't give examples because there are too many, but if you read any of his SW books you'll see him frequently make shameless references to the original film trilogy and to name places and people that should never come up in conversation except that the author wants to wink at you that he's writing a Star Wars book. Phrases such as "it's as hot as Tatooine" made by people who are not Luke (and ergo have obviously watched Star Wars since who the hell else would have heard of Tatooine) make me cringe, but those are not even as offensive as the general one-upping that KJA generally tries to do to other SW stories and the movies.

Speaking of lack of imagination, in Darksabre we arrive on Degobah, Hoth, we have a new Death Star, and there are even appearances by General Madine and the freaking Wampa from Ep V. Write your own story, jackass, stop making senseless references to other stories to bask in their glory.

Believe me, I know. He can''t help going crazy with the references, and they embarrassed me even then when I read those books. Two of the scenes I which shamelessly redo scenes from the films are "Help me, Obi-Wan. You're my only hope," and Luke going "Help me, Leia!" The second was very awkward when done in the arms of his girlfriend (who probably wondered if he had a few unresolved issues since Return of the Jedi).

The revisiting the planets from the movies, but made more "thrilling!" aspect, is something one would do for a Star Wars video game. Jedi Academy did a similar thing, and the story sucked but the gameplay was fun.

IIRC Darksaber was also rather ludicrious in that it claimed making the Super Star Destroyer almost bankrupted the Empire (not the Death Star...) but somehow the Hutt Cartel could easily afford building a Lightsaber-shaped Death Star Laser.

But then KJA is also the creator of the Ultra-invulnerable Sun Crusher which could blow up whole star systems! And when a young Jedi prospect who happened to be more powerful with the force than Luke Skywalker used it to take revenge by killing off an entire system of people, he:

1. Did not turn to the dark side
2. Got a slap on the wrist when he 'apologized'

I think the best part of KJA's Star Wars career is "I Jedi" where another author actually re-writes the 'Jedi Academy' trilogy from an outside perspective in order to fix it.

Also, that writer has their own fantasy cartography trilogy, and I have little doubt that KJA wrote his fantasy cartography series in a jealous rage.

Ampoliros wrote:IIRC Darksaber was also rather ludicrious in that it claimed making the Super Star Destroyer almost bankrupted the Empire (not the Death Star...) but somehow the Hutt Cartel could easily afford building a Lightsaber-shaped Death Star Laser.

But then KJA is also the creator of the Ultra-invulnerable Sun Crusher which could blow up whole star systems! And when a young Jedi prospect who happened to be more powerful with the force than Luke Skywalker used it to take revenge by killing off an entire system of people, he:

1. Did not turn to the dark side
2. Got a slap on the wrist when he 'apologized'

I think the best part of KJA's Star Wars career is "I Jedi" where another author actually re-writes the 'Jedi Academy' trilogy from an outside perspective in order to fix it.

Also, that writer has their own fantasy cartography trilogy, and I have little doubt that KJA wrote his fantasy cartography series in a jealous rage.

I, Jedi was Mike Stackpole as I recall. He was pretty decent for a Star Wars novelist I thought. I enjoyed some of his X-Wing novels back in the day.

I didn't know about the cartography trilogy thing. That's brilliant!

Ampoliros wrote:IIRC Darksaber was also rather ludicrious in that it claimed making the Super Star Destroyer almost bankrupted the Empire (not the Death Star...) but somehow the Hutt Cartel could easily afford building a Lightsaber-shaped Death Star Laser.

The Hutts are loaded. It's just that most of them would spend it on Twi'lek dancers and Rancors rather than destructive weaponry. And the Darksaber was not intentionally made lightsaber shaped: it just resulted that way, being just the laser.

Ampoliros wrote:But then KJA is also the creator of the Ultra-invulnerable Sun Crusher which could blow up whole star systems!

It got destroyed, as well as its secrets. No more super awesome Sun Crusher anymore.

Ampoliros wrote:And when a young Jedi prospect who happened to be more powerful with the force than Luke Skywalker used it to take revenge by killing off an entire system of people, he:

1. Did not turn to the dark side
2. Got a slap on the wrist when he 'apologized'

Yeah, Kyp Durron may have been a sucker, but Luke and the New Republic were bigger suckers for letting him off easy. That was something Corran Horn could not forgive about Luke in I, Jedi. Kyp ends up being a self-righteous ass in The New Jedi Order, when he thinks he's the most badass Jedi ever. The memory of getting trigger happy with the Sun Crusher should have taught him some humility.

Ampoliros wrote:I think the best part of KJA's Star Wars career is "I Jedi" where another author actually re-writes the 'Jedi Academy' trilogy from an outside perspective in order to fix it.

Also, that writer has their own fantasy cartography trilogy, and I have little doubt that KJA wrote his fantasy cartography series in a jealous rage.[/quote]

I, Jedi is definitely way better than a majority of Star Wars books, including the Jedi Academy trilogy. Not only did I like Stackpole retelling the Jedi Academy trilogy from another, smarter perspective, but it was also clever homage to the plot of Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight. Both Kyle Katarn and Corran Horn had professional military training before joining the rebellion, both had murdered fathers, both inherited lightsabers from parental figures, and both learned the Force when they were up against greater foes. I think that Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast borrows a little bit from I, Jedi, except Kyle doesn't get to hang out with the students featured in that book.

Whenever I read Kyp, I think of this guy:

And his valiant captain, Zhack Brannigan

lotek wrote:And his valiant captain, Zhack Brannigan

I have one problem with that pic. Please remove Matt Groening's name from it lest Keith gets any ideas.

Yeah you make a good point here. I'll will correct this asap.